County April 9 referendum could prove pointless

Posted: Friday, Feb 15th, 2013BY: Gordon Woods

CLINTON — An April 9 county referendum to offer residents in unincorporated areas the opportunity to become part of an electricity-buying pool could prove pointless after the DeWitt County Board on Thursday failed to approve a firm to handle purchasing for the pool.

Good Energy and Integrys are two companies that pitched their services to the county board in January. The firms were vying to represent Ameren electricity customers in the county’s unincorporated areas as a third party electric purchaser. The county board approved placing the referendum on the April 9 ballot based on those presentations.

The City of Clinton earlier voted to also place the referendum on the April 9 ballot to offer its residents the same opportunity. Clinton City Council voted recently to contract with Good Energy as its purchasing agent. Good will solicit bids during the annual electricity auction, and Clinton city representatives would authorize the low bid for customers.

Now, however, if the county does not contract with a firm and voters pass the referendum to become part of an aggregation pool, passage of the referendum will serve no purpose for residents living in those unincorporated areas.